Methods Will Allow Researchers To Develop New “Smart”
Materials
(June 30, 2015) Carnegie
Mellon University chemists have developed two novel methods to characterize
3-dimensional macroporous hydrogels — materials that hold great promise for
developing “smart” responsive materials that can be used for catalysts,
chemical detectors, tissue engineering scaffolds and absorbents for carbon
capture.
Researchers working in the lab of Carnegie Mellon Professor
Krzysztof Matyjaszewski published their results in the May issue of Advanced
Science, with the article featured on the journal’s back cover. Their findings
are the latest in Matyjaszewski lab’s long history of breakthroughs in polymer
science.
The 3DOM hydrogels contain a network of interconnected pores
with uniform size. The configuration of these pores allows the materials to
hold a large amount of liquid, and influences the material’s properties.